[KFCC] The Duel Review

Story: The swords master Son-Cool Yeh returns a Jade seal to the emperor in exchange to fight a duel with Simon the Snowball (Ekin Cheng) in the forbidden city. The emperor entrusts Dragon 9 with 8 gold medal that are to be given out to important people so they may attend the duel. The news spread quickly that this is the duel of the century and many people ask Dragon 9 for a medal. With many bets on the outcome of the duel, the people await with great excitement. But before the duel is to begin, Dragon 9 must investigate several mysterious murders that might alter the fairness of the duel.

Review: This movie is a bit difficult to categorize, its almost a Drama yet still in the Swordplay setting. This is another new wave film done in the Storm Riders style, the visuals and special effects are stunning. Also compared to other films of its genre that is some good comedy compare to the cold seriousness. This movie has a well developed story that is generally easy to follow, there are a few scenes that are confusing as they refer to several characters and you are not sure who is who.

There is a colorful cast of characters, you had all the typical characters from a swordplay movie and a few other interesting. There are just a few main characters that have the focus on them but everyone who is with the main characters gets a decent amount of focus. There is no background but the development is decent. Also there is quite a bit of humour from the various characters, especially from Dragon 9. The on screen performance from everyone is great.

The action scenes in this movie resemble such films and Storm Riders but it was a little more physical. Yet there is a lot of work that needs to be done towards coming to the perfect balance between special effects and physical fighting. The special effects used in the fights were very nice in quality. An important thing to mention that there is very little fighting in this film, only a few fights. Also the final fight, the duel itself is a little disappointing as the movie builds up to that moments and you end up with a fancy display and special effects but no real fighting.

The subtitles were decent in this movie but one thing you'll notice there is a lot of dialog you will be reading quite a bit. The quality of this VCD was surprising, if you cant wait for the DVD well the VCD version is a great alternative. This was yet again another new wave fantasy swordplay, this type of movie is extremely beautiful but sadly it is lacking hard physical action. For those who enjoyed Storm Riders and A man called Hero we are sure you will enjoy this but don't wait for anything extraordinary, this is a decent movie. With the toned down action and a more dramatic comedy we are sure that most people will enjoy it.